Song Analysis: Billie Holiday's Blue Moon

Billie Holiday’s “Blue Moon” was featured in her 1952 album Billie Holiday Sings produced by Norman Granz. This Jazz standard was originally written in 1935 by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart who were contracted by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to write songs for Hollywood Movies. Perhaps the most epic and original Jazz singer in history, Billie’s voice had a quality like no other. With strength she had remarkable melodic sensitivity and phrasing, allowing her to master the art of evoking emotion. With her “Broken Voice” due to her life experiences and a powerful elegance this vocal jazz love song along with her entire jazz ensemble, was some of the best of her last.

Also produced by Norman Granz, Stan Getz and Dizzy Gillespie’s Bop meets Cool interpretation

of “Exactly Like You” was recorded a few years after Billie’s “Blue Moon”. Stan and Dizzy were accompanied on this album by masters of the rhythm section Oscar Peterson and drummer Max Roach. Like the old adage “Opposites Attract” Stan’s stylistic cool approach worked in this song and fused nicely with Dizzy’s grandeur expertise, intricate improvisation and harmonic asymmetrical phrasing. The song features solos from Trumpet and Tenor Saxophone as well as the Rhythm Section. The soloists are not being tied into the song form but instead they are floating free over the cadences of the underlying song form. The connecting link between Billie and Diz and Getz is producer Norman Granz. He pushed to merge and achieve a fusion of different genres by means of promoting integration of audiences and desegregation of artists.

For my next track, I chose a Duke Ellington song “Blues.” One of the most influential all-round musical figures of the Jazz world, he was a gifted composer, instrumentalist, arranger as well as

a talented bandleader. In this seven-minute song we can see how Duke was fascinated by the challenge of creating an extended format for jazz music. The genre in the introduction has a more swing texture but the many elaborate solos featured give the piece its true big band feel. Mr. Ellington along the years was a major force in the Jazz industry and his versatility as an artistic vanguard gave him the ability to adapt, thus keeping in tune with the musical changes as time went by. The piece features an unconventional construction of the jazz song form with different modulations (changes through different keys) constructed on sumptuous melodies that wonder into unexpected places. The connection between the first two pieces is not more in the genre side but in the fact that with the other two songs mentioned above, Duke worked closely with his then white manager and publisher Irving Mills. Mr. Mills was also a pioneer of integration in music and places; he was one of the first in recording black and white musicians together.